Migration, remittances and smallholder decision-making: Implications for land use and livelihood change in Central America

Toward the Integrated Framework Analysis of Linkages among Agrobiodiversity, Livelihood Diversification, Ecological Systems, and Sustainability amid Global Change

“…Second and by contrast, various studies beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s suggest that livelihood diversification reduces the supply of labor needed for the sustainable management of agroecosystems, including terracing of agricultural fields on sloped soils [87,88] and the cultivation of high-agrobiodiversity crops with staggered or extended growing seasons [117]. Third, the role of migration remittances is complex and may be either detrimental or beneficial with regard to environmental impacts in sending communities [89,90], which has seemed to motivate the growing number of case studies of livelihood diversification and environmental impacts in development. Gendered social relations and their role in agriculture and land use are an increasingly important focus of these studies [112,[172][173][174][175][176][177][178].…”

“…Generally, the process of disintensification is associated with livelihood diversification, although several studies mention it, and a few are able to demonstrate the increase of intensification, while others suggest the occurrence of no change in intensification level. Gender dynamics are critical to these trends, since in many cases women become the main farm managers, and this "feminization" of resource use exerts a major influence on the specifics of agricultural change (e.g., crop choice) and general outcomes (e.g., intensification or disintensification) [14,48,51,89,90,97,[172][173][174][175][176][177][196][197][198]. For example, the decline of chili pepper markets led to disintensification in the southern Yucatán region of Mexico through processes of livelihood diversification based on international migration and the influence of women's role in subsequent resource use [173,196,197].…”

Climate-smart agriculture global research agenda: scientific basis for action

“…In Central America, temporary international migration of members of smallholder households has been indirectly associated with a lack of reforestation; remittances are spent on owning more land, and less household labour favours a transition to cattle production. This is relatively safe and risk-averse compared to row crop production, but it increases forest loss and land degradation and thus decreases the mitigation and adaptation potential [274]. Rural-rural migration offers a livelihood adaptation strategy for rural people facing stresses and shocks due to climate change, but it can also increase migrants' vulnerability.…”

The impact of migration and remittances on natural resources in Tajikistan

“…Under the 'new economics of labor migration,' smallholder farmers use remittances to invest in land in order to intensify agricultural use or to transition to cattle ranching (Davis and Lopez-Carr 2014). This theory suggests that forest resources would be harmed by the entrepreneurial logics of remittances.…”